Sunday, January 15, 2006

The "Where Have We Been" post

We've been running at a gazillion miles-per-hour for the last couple of months and now that we have a brief break, all I can do is yawn...

The reason for the lack of updates on this blog is because of three reasons:

1) the projects we've been working on have been all-consuming and turned our schedules blood red,

2) nothing has been officially "released" at this point,

and most importantly,

3) we'd rather sleep for an extra 20 minutes than blog.

However, we've actually been in the throes of some exciting projects for Disney TV (one of which is a Ghostbot original), as well as some fun stuff for our old alma mater Leap Frog, and wrapping up a couple more commercials for Wild Brain. Needless to say, once things get more official, plenty of beans will be gladly spilled here...

Thanks to supervising director, Dave Marshall, we had the privilege of cutting our TV storyboarding teeth for 2 full episodes - "To Err is Truman" and "Truman's Choice" - and 1/2 of another - "Mission Irresponsible" - (behind the legendary Jim Smith!). We had a blast, even if we were a bunch of greenhorned rookies next to the likes of veterans including Jim Smith, Lee Hong, and Vincent Waller. We learned a lot during our brief stint (translation: we got punched hard and we loved it) and we look forward to more opportunities of working with the stellar crew at Nick. Hopefully, I'll stop yawning long enough to post up a board-to-final comparison for the episodes we worked on. In the meantime, check out the show!

(And when did we pass 20000 hits?! I'm sure 19000 of them are us but woohoo!)

I have to admit that I'm kind of disappointed to learn that GhostBot had a part of this show. It seems like a pretty clear rip off of 'The Incredibles' -- not the genre, but the overall theme. The only good thing I can say is that I like the animation, and since that's what you guys do, then good job. Otherwise, the concept is ripped and the writing is pretty lame. Too bad.

Anonymous… Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Some people love the Xs, some people don’t. All I can say is that it was amazing working with Carlos, Dave and all those awesome freakin board artists. The experience was tough, but definitely made me a way better storyteller/artist for it!

Jared… Thanks for tuning into the Ghostblog and supporting us. We’ll try to post a little more regularly now that some of our jobs just wrapped.

I'm suprised Dave Marshall could critque your work with those crazy small glasses of his. Can he really see out of them or does he just sense what's wrong and spout Marshallisms like"What am I looking at?" and "Okay, you can draw, but you don't know shit about storyboards!"?

Dave definitely comes from the school of "If it doesn't kill you, it'll make you stronger" (I think he has that tattooed on his knuckles). He's never pulled punches when he's dealt with us but in working with him, we've only gotten better. We have a lot of respect for him (small glasses and all) and we hope to work with him again!

I like your stuff. I've been a little overwhelmed by all the hard-edged work that Drawn and Cartoon Brew has been linking to, and feeling a little out of the loop with my own scratchy, non-animated work, but I love the emotions in your characters, allied with the slick designs. More animated rage and royal hamsters, please!

THE X'S has become my favorite new show on Nick. And since I really enjoy your work (many people have compared the show to your eSurance commercials), I'm quite delighted to hear that you are involved in the show! I hope you do more episodes.